Comments on: California school district bans dictionary from classroom

By: bill p

bill p — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:17:13 +0000

This is a ridiculous case and it certainly will find its way eventually to the courts. Not sure why it is being cited here, no lawyers involved here that I can see.

By: School District Bans MW Collegiate Dictionary

School District Bans MW Collegiate Dictionary — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:37:12 +0000

[…] h/t Walter Olson at Overlawyered.com… […]

By: Frank C ostanza

Frank C ostanza — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:51:49 +0000

No, the worst aspect is that the word “supposedly” found, according to an update, was NOT in the dictionary the parent cited. Seems she had her own agenda here.

By: nevins

nevins — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:50:45 +0000

Time for some turn-about. The visiting parent was looking up lewd words in the presence of children? Charge her with intent to corrupt a minor and forbid her to enter the school building and remain 100 yards away from the property.

By: A.W.

A.W. — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:40:28 +0000

mmm, not as heinous as the berkeley high school banning the science labs, but yeah, pretty bad.

By: Todd Rogers

Todd Rogers — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:28:30 +0000

What’s this lady going to do when her kid goes to web-dictionaries and discovers that you can make your PC audibly pronounce such terms?

By: Yogi

Yogi — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:36:34 +0000

@GregS

Your assumption that public schools are teaching reading (or, really anything much) is false-to-fact.

Possibly you have not interviewed any high school graduates lately.

/end snark

By: GregS

GregS — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:16:02 +0000

The real problem is with reading itself. If the schools didn’t teach kids how to read, they wouldn’t be able to read naughty words in the dictionary or anywhere else. So really, the solution is to stop teaching the kids this nasty skill altogether.

By: Bob Lipton

Bob Lipton — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:08:31 +0000

Better get that Bible out of there too.

Bob

By: ps

ps — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:43:25 +0000

Better ban all dictionaries since they contain the exact words you will find in many undesirable publications like Huckleberry Finn and Mein Kampf (English translation, of course). Maybe we should stop talking altogether since language itself can be offensive if you put the words in the right order and speak them to certain people.